1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to the fields of biotechnology and agriculture and more specifically to the field of transgenic crop plants.
2. Background of the Invention
Brassica crops are important in many areas of the world. The methods of biotechnology may be applied to these crops to produce crops with improved traits such as herbicide tolerance. Herbicide tolerance may be achieved in transgenic plants by the expression of a transgene capable of providing such tolerance. The expression of a transgene in a plant may be influenced by a combination of factors such as the regulatory elements used in the transgene cassette, the chromosomal location of the transgene insert, and the proximity of any endogenous regulatory elements close to the integration site. For example, it has been observed that there may be wide variation in the overall level of transgene expression or in the spatial or temporal pattern of transgene expression between similarly-produced events. For this reason, it may be necessary to produce and test hundreds of individual plant transformation events in order to ultimately identify one event useful for commercial agricultural purposes. Such an event, once identified as having the desired transgene expression and molecular characteristics, may then be used for introgressing the trait into other genetic backgrounds using plant breeding methods. The resulting progeny would contain the transgenic event and would therefore have the transgene expression characteristics for that trait of the original transformant. This may be used to produce a number of different crop varieties that comprise the improved trait and are suitably adapted to specific local growing conditions.